Xtreme Scream Park 2017

Over recent years, Xtreme Scream Park has been the one to watch. In 2015, they won the award for the best Scream Park due to their incredibly well themed mazes and attractions, coupled with the sheer volume of scares at the event. The line-up remained static for 2016, therefore we were excited when, the park announced two massive new mazes Hoodoo Voodoo and The Village for 2017.

This year has also seen a wider use of the new hub with three of the scare attractions branching off from the centralised performance area. Clearly, over time – more of the mazes will be accessible from this area – meaning the park will have a self-contained Halloween home that can be shut off during the family day event. However, as much fun as the performance stage and the incredible roaming characters are – our main reason for visiting was the six scare mazes.

As soon as we entered the park, we headed straight to Revenge of the Zombie Clowns, a maze that has always given us some fun scares in the past. The show started so well with a very impressive host who sent us on our way – and as we passed through the multiple curtains, we had some jump scares, but nothing truly outstanding. Then all of a sudden it ended and we were back outside. It would seem that the route has been drastically reduced to facilitate the new exit point, which is a real shame. As a stand-alone maze, the Zombie Clowns were fun and quite entertaining but compared to the rest of the mazes, the maze just didn’t compare. Disappointingly – this was our worst maze of the night. Good job we did it first!

Hoodo Voodoo is the brand new maze for 2017, and we had no idea what to expect. The children’s maze - The Dungeon has been completely repurposed into a beautifully themed love letter to the Southern Caribbean. The walls were lined with wood and and palm trees and with the ambient sound effects and lighting – it was hard to believe we were stood inside a warehouse in Melton Mowbray! Of course, everyone knows you should not mess with Voodoo and very soon, the true nature of this maze was revealed as we were led to a rope and hooded. What then followed was a standard hooded section that was enlivened by the incredible cast of actors and the sounds they were making around us. The section was long, dark and completely immersive, therefore it was quite a shock to suddenly feel the hood being tugged from our heads and realising we still had a massive portion of maze left to go. What then followed was more beautiful theming, some amazing scares and probably the best use of voodoo dolls we have ever seen! From beginning to end – Hoodoo Voodoo was a great maze, and was executed perfectly. After the disappointment of the clowns, we were starting to get our hopes up about the rest of the event – would the other mazes be as good?

Our next maze was Stilton Hall Hotel and Hell Spa – which has always had a reputation for its intricate theming and beautiful design. Fortunately, it was also home to many many excitable actors that were dedicated to scaring the crap out of us! Scares came thick and fast throughout the very long two-storey maze. It was probably the best run through we have ever had – which was made even better by the “bellboy” recognising us and giving us some very special treatment!

The next returning maze is the extended Pie Factory, which includes the outdoor pig paddock section. This was the first maze the park created when they started hosting Xtreme Scream Park, and the whole thing still packs a might punchy. The actors were as ever, wild and almost out of control and terrorised us from beginning to end. In any other park, this would have been the stand out attraction but we had already experienced two other stand out attractions. So far, we were three for four on stand out attractions. Surely, this high ranking could not continue through the final two attractions. Well how wrong we were!

Ash Hell Penitentiary has been one of our favourite scare attractions since it debuted 2 years ago and there was NOTHING on our visit that would contradict that. Beautifully themed, the attraction just seems to go on and on and the actors were some of the most aggressive of the whole event. The scares throughout this maze just never let up and the whole team had some real moments of panic throughout. We must apologise to the one inmate who two of the team grabbed and held onto in the dark thinking he was one of us – his face when the lights came back on were a picture as he had two people hanging on to him! If you haven’t experience AshHell penitentiary then its worth the price of entry to the scream park just to do this one maze. Genuinely – If you visit only one scare attraction this year, make it Ash Hell!

Finally – the new maze for 2017 is the massive The Village – a 20-minute extravaganza of scares, detailed theming, incredible scarecrow costumes and a killer ending that blew us away. The experience takes place in a winding woodland walk with multiple buildings throughout. From houses and garages through to schools and laboratories, the sheer number of different environments that we passed through was incredible and the scares were relentless. All of this would have been sufficient, until the path lead us to a large church like building for the final few scenes. At this point, the story has built up throughout the whole maze and literally all hell broke loose. There were some things in there that we have not seen before and there was one “what the hell just happened” scene that we would have loved to stand and watch again as it happened so quickly and we were too busy cowering!​So there we have it – a scream park where 5 out of the 6 attractions were outstanding. It seems churlish to moan about the zombie clowns when the other attractions are so good and we hope that this is just an oversight for this year. Clearly, a LOT of money has been spent to create such an amazing event, and the park deserve all the success they can get. As we have said already, you really need to visit this for yourself – in fact, we will be bold enough to say that if Xtreme Scream Park isn’t on your itinerary this Halloween then you really are a fool!

TerrifyingI loved the night - I have never been so scared if I am honest and the actors were fantastic. I will be attending again next year

Very scaryAbsolutely brilliant I run a trip to this for the last five years there was 18 of us this year it just grows and grows every year we run it it's amazing I always bring new people to this however this year and last year the feedback on the clown maze was shocking they need to get rid of this maze all together it really lets it down but everything else was amazing

Xtreme Scream Park 2016

Here at ScareTOUR we are never ones to take a short cut. We go up and down the country seeking out scare attractions and we make a point of visiting as many as we can. Last year, after a few years of operation, we re-visited Xtreme Scream Park and were so impressed that it was awarded Best Scream Park at this years ScareCON SCAR awards.

This year the line up remains unchanged, but when it was as good as last year, that really doesn't matter. But it's not just about the 6 mazes, and this year the park have created a new festival/stage area with live entertainment. This will essentially be the new central hub for future years with the Xtreme event eventually becoming a self enclosed area for Halloween. It's a great addition and was nice to just chill between the mazes.

So, we said we don't take short cuts - but having re-read last year's reviews we realised that everything we said then stands now. So here are our reviews from last year. The mazes remain predominantly unchanged and so does our opinion of them. In fact - if anything the mazes are better this year as the actors seemed even crazier than before!

Ash Hell Penitentiary was brand new for 2015 and was branded on the map as having a scare factor of 11 out of 10. Crazy marketing hype? Or genuinely scary? We didn’t have long to wait to find out as after a quick briefing, the doors were briefly flung open and we were pushed inside. Once inside – any pretense that this was a theatrical production in a family theme park was gone. The whole experience was the closest thing we will ever get to a full scale riot in a prison!. Prisoners were loose and very angry and we had just one way to go – forwards. The route took us through all aspects of a prison including the cells – lots of them! The convicts had dug out escape holes between cells and we crawled and stooped to get out. The path seemed never ending and each room would contain all manner of crazy inmates ready to terrorise us. The level of scares and intensity through the whole of the attraction were some of the strongest of the season but were also complemented by the incredible theming throughout. The attraction has been built as a permanent structure, and as such, the attention to detail in the design was incredible - we weren't inside a temporary maze in a theme park – we were inside a real prison! The walls were solid, the metal bars were solid, the props all looked real. Even the escape route between cells looked like they had been carved away by the prisoners with a blunt instrument!. For something that is only going to be operated for a few weeks each year, the level of detail in the theming and design is simply stunning. When we finally got out of the attraction we were breathless, shaky and totally exhilarated. Looking back on that rating though - we think they got it wrong, Ash Hell Penitentiary was so incredible that we would give it 15 out of 10!

The Hunted. Hooded mazes are potentially an easy attraction to create, Apart from ensuring there is a rope to follow, there is no real construction required. In fact for all intents and purposes, the actors could be stood around in jeans and t'shirt. We would like to think differently of The Hunted and hope that the cast were all dressed as some rich hunting weirdos as they taunted us from beginning to end. Throughout the maze we were pushed, grabbed and teased mercilessly – the actors sometimes playing with our hoods as well. Compared to random noises and scares found in other dark mazes, The Hunted continued the story line all the way through until our masks were removed for the last quarter of the maze. By this point, it was time to see the wild creatures we were being fed to and the finale had us escaping a small maze section with impressive werewolves appearing form all sides. The mix of hooded and non hooded worked really well and made for a really exciting maze throughout.

Stilton Hall Hotel and Hell Spa was new for 2014 and remains one of the longest scare attractions across the UK. As with Ash-Hell Penitentiary, this attraction is based in a purpose built facility which means the level of detail in the room designs, is some of the best around. The number of rooms seems endless, and as we passed from scene to scene we were again amazed at the different aspects that had gone into building this attraction. Each room is packed to the rafters with furniture and theming and the route through can be very narrow at times, meaning guests can get very close with the sets and the actors roaming them. Of course with such a large set we found there were a few rooms that seemed to be lacking in scares, but this is understandable due to the size. Certainly by the time we had passed upstairs into the attic the attraction seemed to rely more on effects (a very long array of Claustrophobia tunnels for example). Our only other niggle with our visit through was that the groups were being batched very quickly which kept the queues to a minimum but did mean we backed up a bit once inside.

When it first opened, The Pie Factory was an impressively themed attraction that played on the heritage of the parks location (Melton Mowbray – famed for Pork Pies). Since then – the tour of the factory has been extended to include other buildings such as the homes of the pigs and some of the factory workers. The first half of the tour felt slightly underpopulated, and we started to wonder what had happened to the attraction that we had originally loved so much. Fortunately an encounter with a terrifying 5 foot high wild boar puppet kicked the attraction into high gear and from there on in, we were chased, separated and terrorised by all manner of crazy characters, all trying to make mincemeat out of us! The final half of the maze really made up for the slower start and we ended up desperate to escape the onslaught of an all too noisy power tool!

Belvoir Dungeon has been a mainstay at the park since they first opened and has vastly improved over the years, Utilising a children's maze, the venue was completely disorientating, as the building was filled with smoke, and rooms and scenes alternated between periods of pitch darkness and areas floodlit with crazy strobe lighting. The maze was populated by a family of crazy vampires who really knew how to work the space and get multiple scares. Especially at times when we felt either trapped or vulnerable as we tried to squeeze through or under some fairly impassable barriers. From beginning to end the creatures terrorised us and with the maze element of the attraction - we genuinely got lost a few times thinking we were stuck there never to escape . For a simple maze that didn't require much build we were surprised at how many scares we had

Our final maze of the night was Twisted From beginning to end, this maze had us jumping with fright and laughter as the clowns seemed to keep coming from nowhere. We loved the attacks from above and the leg grabs from below as well as the genuinely evil but mischievous way the clowns taunted us throughout. Its not the scariest maze at the park by any stretch but it was genuinely great scary fun!

So there we have it - all 6 mazes are back for 2016 and we are still impressed with the level of theming and attention to detail throughout. Add in the amazing cast in all the attractions and unique and different elements throughout, then Xtreme scream Park is one that you MUST visit - just don't tell the prison governor that ScareTOUR sent you - they may not let you out!

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Terrifying - For under £20, Xtreme Scream park was without a doubt the best scream ever created in the UK. The general atmosphere across the areas were immersive and chilling. The roaming actors were sensational and quite frankly brilliant. The smell of a combined fire and smoke effects filled the park, giving it such an emmersive feel.

The dungeon was my first maze of the evening, and it consisted of dark confined spaces, crazy strobe lights and actors who really knew what they were doing. The maze was put into a very small area, and the walls were very thin creating an extremely claustrophobic feel. This was an extremely underrated maze and definitely not the weakest one despite being advertised as it. 7/10 from me

Twisted was standard curtain clowns maze that built tension very well, and the actors used a mixture of loud noises, attacks from above and simple (but effective) hiding round corners. The maze, just like dungeon didn't include any themeing, just big curtains and the odd small set, however it made up for it with an enjoyable and yet terrifying aspect. 7/10 again from me.

The hunted was a maze I had high expectations for, however somewhat didn't live up to it. I absolutely the loved the start with the queue line and the maze host, and I also liked the system they used to get the hoods on your head. However I felt like the maze was so lengthy, and had a severe lack of actors. The main scare was desperately trying to follow the rope around and feeling your way through. I loved the fact that they changed the flooring at times, and also the rope changed to things such as fur. However the maze lacked actors, which meant it lacked scares. The finale however was very well done and was enjoyable.6/10 from me

The Pie Factory really started to up the game in terms of the maze quality, and was the first maze of the night that took theming to a different level. The acting quality was brilliant, and the theming was sensational throughout. The maze again however seemed to lack actors, and I rarely had a jumpy moment, however I can see that the maze has potential to be very strong when it does include a good amount of actors.8/10 from me

Stilton Hall a hotel and Hell Spa was one hell of an experience. This was the most fun I've ever had in a maze, and I enjoyed every moment of it. Right from the start when we were shoved into a sauna room and locked in, I was straddled and licked by an actor and gave me a good idea for what to expect. The attention to detail throughout the attraction was something very very special, I did not find a room that didn't lack in themeing. The maze itself seemed to go on, and on, and on. And I was grabbed by the leg, had my hair pulled and pinned up against a wall. I came out this maze absolute overwhelmed and it would take me a whole separate page to review this in detail. It gets a 9/10 from me.

Now after coming out of the Hell Spa, I wondered if anything could possibly top that, and my question was soon answered with a big big yes! Ash Hell is the most immersive and intense maze experience in the UK, surely? Right from the off I was tormented, grabbed, bullied and jumped out of my skin. The themeing in this maze was yet again, on a different level, and the acting quality was also absolutely brilliant. I came out the maze shaking and lost for words, and it's an experience that will last with me forever, and one that you will struggle to top in the UK, and possibly Europe. 10/10

Xtreme Scream park has a very bright future on its hands, and I am very excited to see where they can possibly go from here, and what other new attractions they can create. The atmosphere, the feel of the park and of course the attractions all add up to make this an event worse every penny of the ridiculously cheap entry fee!

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